Gaming

Odd? In Vanguard? Of COURSE Not!

stargrace February 18, 2007 1 Comment

Of course, every Jute Tent should be made with the faces of little children, right? Well, apparently that’s what my Kojan half elf makes her tents out of. I’m sure they must be the demon spawns of Martok or something, that’s the only explination I can think of. It’s interesting to be paying to play a beta game. That’s basically what Vanguard is. No, this isn’t me knocking it, I do enjoy it after all. There are just so many bugs, that it’s a wonder why people enjoy it. It has the capacity to become a wonderful game – in a few months. So enjoy the rest of the ‘oddity’ screen shots I’ve taken over the past little while. Some are just amusing, others are just nice.

In the one with my level 10 blood mage (who is the female) I’m curious.. where did that guy come from?! I’ve got no male characters on my account at all, and this one followed all of my characters, no matter who I switched to. Interesting bug to say the least, perhaps it was some sort of soul mate?

And then of course there is the great Martok boars. Did you know that they can stagger? Well, of course you knew that. Everyone knows that. However, did you also know that the good goblins and orcs of Martok have taught their farm animals to speak? Yes, that’s right! They have a broad range of vocabulary ranging from "Ha" to various swear words. Don’t believe me? Just keep looking at the screen shots below.

I realize the game is new but come on. These are blatant issues in game. Not to mention the fact that the /flush command is still the most popular one out there aside from perhaps /rope (which summons a group mate to you if they’re stuck in geometry). I can give them credit for an amazing game, but why are we all paying for something that is obviously still in beta stages.

Things I *really* wish I’d known before hand

stargrace February 16, 2007 2 Comments

Welcome to Vanguard crafting 101. Where every single day you learn something new (or so it would appear). I bring your attention to the image above. It’s for Kojani Jute leg patern (a let piece, seems simple enough). Here’s what you don’t really see from the start though. On initial glance, it would look like (to me.. am I the only one who saw it this way?) you need 20 pieces of jute bolt. 4 of each of the mentioned types, drifter, charlatan, votary, and mystic.

WRONG

You only need 4 of any ONE of those types. So you could have 4 plain jute bolts, or you could attune some, and use 4 drifter, 4 charlatan, 4 votary, or 4 mystic. Don’t be like me and make 20 pieces of jute bolt thinking all of them go into a single piece of gear! It is funny now that I think about it, but damn what a waste of well, everything. I have all this attuned jute now though I suppose I could actually do something with it.

Something else that they don’t tell you as you’re working along the crafting process. Mystic = Wisdom, Drifter = Constitution, Charlatan = Intelligence, Votary = Vitality. How do you learn them without having to search all over? Simple, trial and error as you purchase these 2s each attunements (yes, you can make 3 at a time though, so it’s not a total waste at least). That, was my afternoon, crafting. I didn’t get any experience for any of the jute bolts I’d worked so hard to make either since they were trivial (which I REALLY wish would SHOW YOU in your dang crafted book.. for now you’re expected to simply remember what you’ve made and trivialized in the past). Still sitting at level 4 outfitter. I’m close to 5 though at least. Now that I’ve vented… back to your regular scheduled blogging.

Now I’m free, free falling..

stargrace February 16, 2007 3 Comments

Elissa, doing some Jin trials and falling through the air

Ok, I tried to play the goblin and it just didn’t work out for me. Why? Because I am one of those people who just don’t want to be a green little kid looking creature with a giant man face. Yes, there, I said it. In game looks matter to me. I’m going to be playing for hours possibly, and staring at that character was just very uninspiring. So I remade my rogue, and yes, I know, Kojan again?! A few reasons for this though. A good deal of my friends are playing Kojans, and I really like the starter zone and Tanvu. I also like their racial ability. In a few short hours I’d reached level 8 with Elissa, the new rogue. Mailed her the money I had stashed on the old rogue. I really like the class. I worked diplomacy to a skill of 40 (just enough to be able to do the free mount quest once I hit level 10) and called it a night. I figure I’ll switch out between the rogue, the necromancer, and the blood mage, depending on my moods. I have a warrior that I’ve been mailing plate gear to over time, I haven’t logged her in at all though.

Learned that archery is a hard skill to increase, especially as a rogue. Why would I even bother? Well one of my beginner quests gave me a bow, and while I may not be a ranger (and may instead end up poking out some poor blokes eye) I figured I’d give it a try. Bows don’t auto-attack for you (that I saw at least) so that’s slightly annoying, it was like a combo move that I had to hit every time it refreshed. Managed to find myself about 9 things of pocket lint. I’m working on a sweater I think for the upcoming cold winter.

Learned a new helpful hint when you get stuck some place (as long as you’re in a group). The /rope command saves you from having to use the /stuck yes command (which ports you, typically to the nearest altar or binding stone). Just have your group mate target you and use it, it’ll pull you to them, and free you from whatever plant/tree/bush/rock/outcropping you managed to land yourself in. I imagine there are all sorts of handy hints and tips out there on commands in game that I don’t even know about at all. I remember EQ1 being like that, since they also had the /corpse command, /corpse drag, etc. EQ2 didn’t have any of these short cuts.

Two more important commands for me to remember were /autojoin set and then the channel name, regionsay. For some reason when I joined a channel my EQ2 guild set up on Vanguard, I didn’t remember to autojoin the region channel any more, so I was just in that channel, and wondered for a few days why it was so utterly quiet. Turns out it’s not very quiet at all, /autojoin regionsay, randomchannelhere and you’re set.

Also found a nice site for some VGSoH UI’s, there is of course VGinterface.com, but there is also Vgsohinterface.com – which has a nice selection. I started off by using Drox, it’s one of the most commonly used UI’s mainly because it’s been around the longest. I recently switched over to Grim though. You can find it under the complete sets category. A UI is important to me, makes me feel like I’m playing a game without the crappy WoW screen. Plus I like to see my stats and my coin actually on the screen with me instead of tucked away in my character screen.

Noticed Vanguard doesn’t have any place to let you write a personal bio about yourself. Neither does WoW. So it makes the Rp server slightly lacking. In fact, I’ve rarely come across anyone who Rp’s at all. I figure give it a few months when people are not quite so preoccupied with leveling and crafting, and then we’ll find ourselves some Rp. Though in the regionsay channel yesterday some people were selling the first sloops on the market (small ships), 15g and you get to pick the colours. An entire guild built dedicated to harvesting the materials for these ships. Sounds interesting to say the least.

Pocket Lint, and all of it’s Wonderful Uses

stargrace February 15, 2007 3 Comments

Wow, I wonder what could be made from this! Perhaps a dust bunny, or two!

Qutey brushed a strand of her coarse hair out of her eyes, the straw-like quality it had was becoming ever so annoying as she trekked through the region doing various odds and ends for whomever required her services. The goblin sighed. It was not exactly how she had envisioned her career as a pick pocket. Not that she really had pictured any sort of career from her talents – if they could be called that. The sun was setting, and she was ending yet another task that was required of her. All this to prove herself in the eyes of someone else who just simply didn’t matter that much.

She trudged up the kill, and glanced to the sky, asking for patience.

“Are you Qutey?” a raspy voice asked from her side.

“Err..” She stuttered, knowing very well she’d not given out her name. One of the first rules, after all.

“The Ancestral Spirits talk of you, whispering of great things you will do..” the voice hissed, and spittle flew from the strangers lips. They glanced at her as though they had very little faith in the Ancestral Spirits, and that perhaps they’d been mistaken of this goblin woman who stood hunched over absentmindedly brushing away invisible strands of hair.

“Well.. thanks.. I guess…” Qutey trailed off, unsure of what to say. This person was obviously a lunatic. Her mother had taught her better though, and she kept silent about what she personally thought of the stranger and their odd prophesies.

Finally the one she’d been waiting for arrived, a bunch of notes and papers trailing after them. He eyed Qutey, and got right to business.

“The Legend of Grakkor..” he murmered, eyes glazing over some what. “Tell me girl, what do you know of it.. ” Qutey tried to think back, it had been a while since she’d had any sort of history lessons. She shrugged, letting the newcomer know she knew very little to nothing at all about this legend.

“Ah, foolish child,” he coughed and started shuffling through his bags. “Do they not teach any more these days,” he continued to mummer under his breath, pulling papers out and tossing them towards Qutey so that she was forced to catch them or they’d fall to the ground in the mud. “Read those,” he said with a flicker of annoyance in his voice. “Then you will learn of the Legend of Grakkor, and why it is so important to the clan Martok.” He said no more, and left Qutey standing there wondering after him. She looked at the booklets in her hands and winced. It was going to be a long night.

(( Ok, so the little Rp blurb actually had very little to do with why Qutey likes to pick pocket lint off of people, but it was amusing none the less. I’ve been having a lot of fun with the rogue, she’s now sitting at level 8, with 22 diplomacy. No crafting quite yet. The starter zone is still one of the better ones I’ve seen besides Tanvu. The lore is interesting, the quests are fun, and she’s died a handful of times but it hasn’t bothered me. Game is unfortunately coming down for an emergency patch so I can’t play her too much more right now. ))

The Latest Addition – Qutey Patootie, Rogue of Martok

stargrace February 15, 2007 3 Comments

Isn’t she a little Qutey?

I finally managed to grind my necromancer to 10. It was.. not fun. I really was not enjoying the dark elf starter city at all. So I decided I’d start a few more classes and find the one that stood out to me. Granted, maybe I’m just not the sort of person who ever has that happen. In WoW (as you can see by the character sheets listed under quick links) I had an abundance of characters, same with EQ2. So why would Vanguard be any different — even if I was trying to change my alt-ness ways. I made a druid and quickly grew bored of her, fun, but it was just like playing any other nuker. It was very different to be wearing cloth as a druid instead of leather, and to be nuking instead of healing. Almost every game I’ve played has the druid as a healer. The unique take on this was fun. I’ll probably pick that character up again once I’m bored of my latest trial.

Meet Qutey Patootie, above. A goblish rogue who skulks around stabbing at things. Sneak and hide remind me very very much of my rogue back in EQ1, where you had to work the skills up or you were detected. There’s a few small bugs. Number one being — when you are sneaking and hiding, there is no real indication as to whether or not the mobs actually see you. Their names remain red, agro to you. When you sneak a little closer to them — if they have the chance to see you (especially if you come up at them from the front) little question marks will fly about their head as though they’ve heard something, and they will look directly at you, or if you’re close, they’ll charge you and break your stealth. So there’s some indication. But if you’re just wandering around, they all still look aggressive.

After reading this post on weaknesses and how to exploit them, I found myself teamed up with a monk. Low and behold, monks have a move that I can exploit with one of my level 2 skills. That was fun. I did notice one other small bug, as I was fighting, on a random encounter it said I had done a legendary attack.. and at level 5 — which was astounding to me — I hit the mob for 700 damage roughly at first, and then finished it off for another 600 damage.. at level 5?! That just did not seem right to me, I couldn’t understand it. Not that I was about to complain!

The goblin starter city is a lot of fun. The quests there pay far more then the ones in any other starting zone I’ve been to paid. Maybe to entice those who find the race ugly? I was getting on average 70-80 copper per level 5-6 quest. My necromancer didn’t get paid that amount until level 8-9 quests. So Qutey is sitting comfortably at 6 silver and some change. I’m finding the rogue a lot of fun, and perhaps this will be one of those characters I actually level to some degree. Martok (the starting point) is wide and open, with lots of places to explore, having stealth makes this a whole lot easier. Hopefully as I develop the character some, I’ll get around to writing some rp stories about the gal. We’ll have to see how it goes.